Your Evidence Is Faith

How often do we doubt God’s willingness to meet our needs or provide us with the promises in His Word? Perhaps we don’t believe because we are fearful He will refuse. Fear limits our ability in believing Him. It limits His power working in our lives. 
 
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8).
 
In prayer, we can bring our deepest desires, hopes, and dreams before God, trusting that He will hear and answer us according to His will. Many people have prayed for things God’s Word has promised them, but they have never seen them come to pass. In an attempt to reconcile God’s promises with their experiences, many have said that God sometimes says no or that His promise doesn’t apply to them. But that’s not what Matthew 7:7-8 says. It states that everyone who asks receives. How can this be?

The answer lies in the fact that God is a Spirit (John 4:24), and He moves in the spiritual, or unseen realm. When He answers our prayers, the answers come in spiritual form. Whether or not they ever move from the spiritual realm into the physical realm depends not on God’s willingness to answer us but rather on whether or not we receive. 
 
The enemy will do everything He can to cause doubt, fear, and unbelief. He wants you to become complacent about your request and give up. He will lie and say God’s promises aren't true for you. He will play havoc with your emotions. But faith defeats fear. It defeats the enemy’s lies. Faith is the proof of spiritual things, not physical things. With faith, you have visible proof of unseen things (Hebrews 11:1). Faith doesn't make God move. It only appropriates what God has already provided by His grace. Often, you must forcefully come against the enemy and by faith take hold of the truths of God’s Kingdom (Matthew 11:12). 
 
“Do not fear, little flock,” Jesus said, “for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). It’s God’s intention for you to receive the truths of His Kingdom. 

Jesus also said:  “And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive” (Matthew 21:22). This verse must be considered with the previous verse in chapter 12, which states that having faith without doubting is essential to receiving what you ask for in prayer. 

There are other things God also requires to answer our prayers. What we ask must be consistent with His will (James 4:2-3, 1 John 5:14-15), and we must forgive (Mark 11:25-26). God won’t answer any prayer that doesn't meet His requirements.
 
“Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them” (Mark 11:24).
 
Mark 11:24 reveals one of the main differences between a God-kind of faith and a human faith. A natural, human faith, which everyone has, believes only what it senses or feels. God’s kind of faith believes in things that aren’t seen (Romans 4:17, Hebrews 11:1). When Jesus spoke these words in Mark 11:24, He was making this God-kind of faith a prerequisite to receiving answers to prayer. You must believe that you receive your answer “when you pray,” not when you see what you prayed for. This verse indicates the thing you pray for “will” come to pass. Your answer could be in an instant or over a longer period of time; the word “will” can indicate a future time.

The Lord answers our prayers that meet His requirements: we ask His will, exercise faith without doubting, and not harbor unforgiveness in our hearts. When these are met, He moves to answer our prayers, but He moves in the spiritual realm. His work on our behalf isn’t always immediately evident to our physical senses. By faith, we must believe that He is answering our prayers before we see any physical evidence. Believing when we see an answer isn’t faith (2 Corinthians 5:7), but doubting. And doubt will keep us from receiving the things we have asked of the Lord (James 1:5-7). 

Faith is our evidence (Hebrews 11:1)—not what we see and sense. Faith is where we perceive with our spiritual man instead of with the flesh. Is our confidence in what is seen or is it in the Lord? 

Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him (1 John 5:14-15).